The Importance of Double Compression in Bending

Check out this pictorial of “Iron Tamer” Dave Whitley’s Red Nail Certification from over the weekend.

Notice how Dave starts high and then swings the arm into position for the bend.

The video shows there is NO WASTED MOTION as he begins the initial kink. There is no shaking of the hands, no energy leak, if you will. The force is all concentrated into the nail. That is the first compression – INWARDS on the nail or bar being bent.

The second compression takes place in the lower body and core. This allows you to continue the kink even further.

You can get stuck in “No Man’s Land” when you don’t kink the bar far enough. The bar freezes there as you try to re-group and get the bend going again, but often, that is where it stays.

This second compression allows for a longer kink, moving you past “No Man’s Land” and deeper into the sweep where you can exert more force.

I never knew about any of this, of course, back in 2004 through 2008 when I was doing more bending. In fact, I never learned it until 2010 when Pavel had me do a bending demo at the RKC Certification weekend. He saw what I was doing, mainly standing straight up while bending. This is something you may do too. If you’re just bending 60D’s all day, then that might work for you, but when you are crossing up into unventured territory in 7-inch long, 5/16-inches thick Cold Rolled Steel territory, otherwise known as the Red Nail, standing mainly straight up is only going to get you so far.

Pavel coached me to drop with the legs and core, and not just lean forward but to actually sink down and compress the core, and I couldn’t believe the difference.

I’ve told Dave a few times already, but one more won’t hurt – “Nice work, brotherrrr!”

If you want to learn more about this Double Compression technique to increase your DO Bending, be sure to grab my Nail Bending DVD. I cover it in there, along with many other technical enhancements you will pick up.

Many small things like this can equate to BIG improvements in your bending. Just like any physical endeavor, technique is SO IMPORTANT.

You must build your house on a strong foundation, otherwise, you might find your kitchen in a sink hole one day.

The same can be said regarding Nail Bending. Your strong foundation is your sound technique, and if you don’t have strong technique, then you are leaving bending power on the table.